international employment law firm alliance L&E Global
Poland

Poland: Are Employers Ready to Implement Whistleblower Laws?

In October, the Polish government published its assumptions to the draft law implementing the EU Whistleblowers Directive. There is not much time left, as the deadline for implementing the EU legislation expires on 17 December 2021. But are the obliged entities ready?

Statistical studies show that Polish companies are not ready to implement whistleblower laws. Despite the near deadline for implementation of the directive (17 December 2021), as many as 44% of institutions and 35% of companies have not yet decided which unit in the organisation will deal with collecting and processing reports from whistleblowers.

Less than half of private companies (45%) in Poland covered by the new directive have channels for whistleblowers. The most common solutions include reporting in writing via traditional letters or electronically (56%), reporting in person without specifying the addressee (49%) or reporting to a designated person (10%). In the case of public institutions, 35% of organisations have communication channels. As in the case of private companies, the most popular forms are written or e-mail applications (59%), personal applications without specifying the addressee (48%) and applications to a designated employee (11%).

Both in the case of private companies and public entities, IT solutions created for this purpose are not very popular – less than 8% of organisations use them.

The communication channels used so far for whistleblowers are mostly archaic solutions, which may cast doubts about protecting the confidentiality of their identity. They often do not allow for feedback on the status of the report and do not ensure the anonymity of the whistleblower.

Source:

https://kadry.infor.pl/kadry/indywidualne_prawo_pracy/sygnalista/5333080,Dyrektywa-o-ochronie-sygnalistow.html